.htaccess RewriteRule trouble - apache

Question

I am guessing this question has been asked many times, but i could not find one that would perhaps give me what I need.
So.. I can access the scripts by the following url's:
http://website.com/index.php/hello/world
http://website.com/hello/world
Both go to index.php which parses the input (hello/world in this example).
this is my .htaccess:
<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
Options +FollowSymlinks
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule (.*) index.php?path=$1&%{QUERY_STRING} [L]
</IfModule>
However. When the site is accessed like this:
http://website.com/index.php/hello/world
the RewriteRule outputs something similar to index.php?path=index.php/hello/world
I want to remove that index.php after path= in the RewriteRule

Answer 1

Your .htaccess file should look like this (notice the new rule that checks if index.php is a part of url):
<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
Options +FollowSymlinks
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule ^index.php/(.*)$ index.php?path=$1&%{QUERY_STRING} [L]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule (.*) index.php?path=$1&%{QUERY_STRING} [L]
</IfModule>

Answer 2

Try this
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} -s [OR]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} -l [OR]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} -d
RewriteRule ^.*$ - [NC,L]
RewriteRule ^.*$ index.php [NC,L]

Answer 3

Modifying answer from Stackoverflow answer to suit this question
The .htaccess:
<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
Options +FollowSymlinks
RewriteEngine On
# Redirect user
RewriteCond %{THE_REQUEST} ^.*index.php.*
RewriteRule ^(.*)index.php(.*)$ $1$2 [NC,R=301,L]
# Handle the query to PHP
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule (.*) index.php?path=$1&%{QUERY_STRING} [L]
</IfModule>